


Root Of All Evil

by lagomoth



Category: Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios
Genre: Body Horror, Deicide, also trans hc, enjoy it i think, this is my first time writing something this long so like.... shrug emoji, uh... other... weird gross gorey stuff i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 11:02:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10989600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lagomoth/pseuds/lagomoth
Summary: A glimpse at something lost to time. A fractured look at what happened before the heralds and the lantern. Something painful. Something buried. Something that shouldn't be known. How Adaru became himself, and what he forgot.





	Root Of All Evil

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: this is my first fic on AO3 as well as like... well, my first proper real fic i guess? so yeah. anyway here's the important bit: the horizontal lines kinda indicate a timeshift, in this instance to the past as a kind of "memory" thing. sorry if it causes any confusion!

There was a terrible stillness hanging in the dusty wastes- one that made the humid air all the more thicker, all the more harder to breathe as it spread across the plains with no wind to guide it. The sky was no better- the stars were scarce tonight and the moon was barely a sliver, letting little light pierce the shroud of darkness that blanketed the landscape- as if the moon and stars themselves had forgotten about the dried-out ruins below. The landscape itself was almost completely flat and barren- nothing but dust and hard earth, nothing alive for miles, but nothing dead either; nothing but the sweet smell before rain that would never come. Everything here was uncanny- as if the place itself was waiting in silence, with baited breath, for something to happen. But for years- centuries- _millennia_ , that hesitant silence was unbroken, unchallenged by god and man, and remained as unwavering and patient as ever.

 

Until that night, it seemed.

 

For something stirred the dust, something broke the previously unending silence with weary footsteps as it made its way across the endless plains, towards the crumbling ruins. Even though the sound was softened by the sand, the emptiness carried it and made it impossibly loud- how long had it been since such a noise was last heard here? Was it ever heard at all? Such questions scarcely mattered now. There was no time to spend on them- not when he was this unbearably _close._

 

And yet, he had so far to go. But it would be worth it. This time, there would be no witnesses but himself.

 

Past and present were nothing to him now- only the future ahead, barely out of reach, could sway him. Even despite this, some part of him dwelled on what led to this unnatural venture, distracted him from the stirred, burning dust that scratched at his dark skin and eyes, collected on his tattered robes. The robes of the _girsequ-_ the servants of the king, priest’s clothes, stained with old dirt and older blood. How ironic it was that he still wore them, even after the things he had done, even despite what he planned to do. Perhaps even sacrilegious. They were amongst the few things he kept from his past; amongst his scars and his memories and the legends and prayers- the ones he grew up learning and reciting; the ones he had forsaken before and the ones he would soon forsake again. He kept little besides that- not even his own name.

 

He would not need it for this. He would find a new one soon enough.

 

* * *

 

This was not the first time he had tried to do something so heinous- the act of killing those above him was something he had attempted before. It was the reason for his exile- the reason he was left for dead in the arid wastes beyond the walls of a kingdom which name he had already forgotten. He was part of the king’s court- one of the higher priests. His position was lofty, but his ambition took ahold of him, and he soon sought the crown for himself. Finally, under the cloak of night- a similar veil, in fact, to the current one- he had strengthened his resolve, and with keen knife sought to kill the king and take the crown he would leave in his wake. But somehow, there was something he overlooked- perhaps the king had anticipated such a thing, and set guards to prevent the murder- and his ambition became his downfall.

 

He was beaten- pelted with fists and rocks until bruises and blood bloomed from his skin, until his vision blurred with the pain brought upon him by the anger of hungry crowds that swarmed around him like insects. But the king did not order his death- at least, inside the kingdom walls. Instead he would be left out for the jackals, left to find whatever fate waited for him outside of the safety and comfort and plentifulness of the enclosed lands, left to bleed and die and rot in the dust. There was protest, initially- but the king was steadfast and firm in his decision, and so the traitor was thrown out and left for dead.

 

But he did not die.

 

In spite of all odds, he survived throughout the night. No scavenger came to rend his flesh while he was weak and bleeding outside the kingdom walls, and not even his terrible agony disturbed his exhausted rest. It was as though luck was on his side, even if the gods would not be. As if something was watching over him- something that continued to throughout the next day as he wandered aimlessly, newly exiled, wondering and worrying what would become of him then.

 

The following night, he sought refuge in a dark cavern- one mysteriously hollowed out of the base of a mountain that overlooked the kingdom he had once belonged to. Even though he had never been outside of the kingdom walls he knew that it shouldn’t have been there, but his exhausted, troubled mind paid it no heed. All he could think of was either rest or his inevitable death, and at that point he couldn’t tell which one he preferred. He felt himself collapsing on the cool stone floor, drifting off to sleep as the lingering pain of his bruises and cuts dulled and faded…

 

A strange glow suddenly lit up the cave. He found himself suddenly jolted upwards, momentarily blinded by the sudden light. He winced as the pain of the disturbed wounds shot through him, disorientated, confused, even _frightened_ by whatever that now stood before him. Soon, his sight returned to him, revealing the strange visitor that now illuminated the gloomy crevice.

 

It was nothing human-like- though it pretended to be- but it was beautiful. Its movements coiled and twisted like smoke- unnatural yet somehow graceful; its eyes and teeth glimmered like jewels as it seemed to smile at him- a smile that seemed both gentle and hungry; and it spoke to him with a voice like poisoned honey. It introduced itself as a spirit of Fate- a servant to no god nor king- and congratulated him on his relentlessness. It could not change what had been done, of course- that was all in the past- but it could offer something greater… if he was willing to take a _chance_.

 

It gave him two options: stay there and accept this fate with his hands dirtied no further, or follow it and trade a futile demise amongst the dust for a grander- if bloodier- position.

 

Accept redemption through his own death, or take the throne of a murdered God.

 

It smiled, handed him the knife, and he followed.

 

* * *

 

 

His mind drifted back to the task at hand. A temple loomed over him now- crumbling and ancient, seemingly even more ancient than the very dust it lay in, casting a strange shadow over the sands. The sky had curdled into dark clouds, inching slowly towards the faint rays of moonlight to smother them completely, as he entered the decaying stone labyrinth before him. Some instinct guided him through the winding halls and stairwells, past the strange carvings of forgotten stories written in languages too ancient for him to understand- these may have meant something to someone, once, but now their meanings were lost to the mists of time. The corridors were seemingly endless- even impossible, twisting in strange and obscure directions, overlapping with each-other. But the uncanniest thing of all was the strange sound in the air- a low, ominous rumbling that grew louder and closer with every step he took until it shook the very stone he stood on. Eventually, though, the corridors stopped twisting, straightening themselves out and slanting gently upwards, until they gave way to a strange chamber.

 

The room was illuminated solely by a hole in the ceiling, letting the bare remains of the moonlight shine down upon the carved stone. The walls, like those of the corridors, were covered in unreadable runes and forgotten languages and carvings of shapeless beasts overlooking vast planes. The floor was made of the same crumbling stone, but with strange grooves and intricate circles carved into it, seemingly ‘pointing’ towards a large shrine in the very center of the room, just underneath the gap in the ceiling. The shrine was made of some shimmering black rock and decorated with gold and jewels and fine cotton draped over it- but the strange offerings and carvings upon it didn’t interest him.

 

He was not alone in this room.

 

Amongst the grand tributes lay a giant, shapeless, slowly quivering form. It morphed and writhed but never shifted, the sight of it almost hard for him to fully comprehend- his eyes stung as though bright light was shining in them, and a dull, throbbing pain struck at his temples. The shape scarcely moved, save for its body rising and falling rhythmically, calmly, breathing in its sleep- though the noise was scarce, it still shook the room and knocked crumbling stones loose from the walls; the origin of the ominous rumbling that echoed through the hallways. Despite that, it was peaceful- nothing troubled its sleep, and it slept as soundly as it had for millennia, unaware of its murderer standing over it. He turned away- he couldn’t bear himself to look at it for too long- but noticed, in the faint moonlight, something strange carved into the side of the shrine. A passage, written in some shifting, unreadable language- but one he could somehow understand.

 

‘Here lies the god of the forgotten. May its rest never be disturbed.’

 

 

He looked up again. The god lay there, as peaceful and still as before. He grasped the knife, raising it towards the god and towards the light, and stared at it. The knife was an ornate thing- the blade was made of the same strange shimmering black rock as the shrine, only sharpened to a deadly edge that caught the light and made it glimmer like glass- darker and richer than any obsidian, darker than even the curdling skies above. Embedded in its surface were polished stones of amber that almost seemed to glow in the moonlight- was it really the moonlight that made them luminous?- and the handle was wrapped in some strange kind of leather. It was a marvelous thing- it was such a shame, then, that it would be stained so soon.

 

He held the knife in both hands, raising it again above his head. His gaze pierced the slumbering god again, ignoring the headache and the stinging of his eyes, trying to find the great pulsing heart of the creature. His vision began to blur when he finally spotted the glowing, pulsating shape- it shone through his skin and beat with its ichor, slowly, rhythmically, calmly. He closed his eyes and steeled his shaking hands, breathing deeply inwards and exhaling slowly. At last, he plunged the knife down, down, deep into the god’s heart.

 

It woke with a start, and screamed- a scream full of woe and panic and confusion that shook the temple from its foundations and tore rocks from the walls, an indescribable sound that struck terror and panic into the murderer. He stabbed again- again- the golden ichor flowed out of the god like a river as it screeched and cried and cursed him, guttering, choking on its cry until it finally fell, silent and dead, and bled quietly on the ground before him. Its blood- shining, golden, glowing ichor- stained his arms, his face, dripping from his clothes and- burning. Burning.

 

The ichor was boiling on his skin- it scalded and scarred his flesh, blistering and almost _melting_ the muscle and skin on his arms and face as he panicked, dropped the knife and tried to wash or wipe the blood onto his robes, only to rub the ichor in further and let it soak deep into his sinew- perhaps even to the bone. He cried out- _screamed_ out, cursing and weeping sorely at the agony- as the pain went on, boiling his blood and turning it into wisps of vapor that rose off of his skin and twirled in the remains of the moonlight- the fading moonlight, as the clouds trapped and enveloped the moon and left nothing but dark. The pain only lasted a few minutes, but it felt like hours until it finally melted into a numb, stinging feeling, tender nerves exposed to the air as the ichor finally cooled and dried on his skin. He was shaking now- doubting, haunted by unsureness and gripped by some terrible, mortal terror; the notion that if he continued on this path, he would surely die.

 

A grating sound distracted him from his fears- the sound of stone dragging against stone. The dark hallway he had entered through was no longer there- only smooth walls stood in the entrance's wake. He was trapped. He had no other options- either starve and die here, or finish what he began. The grand chamber seem to shrink, become claustrophobic and restricting, though the walls didn’t move and the room never truly got any smaller. The god’s corpse was rotting already- decaying at a startling rate, seemingly unable to keep its physical form for long enough for him to decide; even the ichor was starting to bubble and boil away. No. No. He had to. He was so far already- there was no time to think, no time to argue with himself. The only time that existed was then- then and only then. A strange sort of desperate calm crept over him- his hands stopped shaking, just long enough for them to cup themselves and allow ichor to pool in them, scalding him- he barely noticed the feeling now, in his desperation. Just long enough for him to take the blood and drink of it- it tasted of gold and fire and wine and burning- and let the rest drip and fall through his fingers, rising into vapour the moment it hit the floor.

 

There was a few moments of calm. Everything grew silent. Warmth flowed through his veins- a steadily increasing warmth- as he heard nothing but his heartbeat; it almost seemed to echo through the chamber, bouncing against the walls and back to him. Silence. Stillness. Serenity, almost. The deed was done. He had finally achieved what he sought- he had killed a god, and soon, soon, he would become one. For a moment, he expected… he wasn’t sure what he expected. To awaken from a dream. The familiar light of the spirit that led him here so eagerly. Or, maybe, the realisation that something was terribly wrong.

 

That was when the burning began again.

 

A sudden fire in his stomach- in his throat- burning, worse than before. He screamed again- collapsed onto the floor, writhing and clutching his torso as the ichor worked its’ terrible magic. Before, the burning was intolerable. Now, it was _indescribable_. He felt tears run down his face, felt bile and blood rise in his throat as he coughed and cursed and swore aimlessly at the open air. He didn’t expect to feel this way. What he thought would give him more power than he could imagine now made him utterly powerless. He felt like he was dying- weak, afraid, pitifully, like the god he murdered, like the king had left him to do out in the desert. His heart drummed in his ears- he clawed at the ground with scalded hands, which almost seemed to crumble away into nothingness beneath his fingers. The room was disappearing- or was he?- fading into an endless void; no moonlight or knife left to protect him, the corpse of the god crumbling and rotting to dust, and the dust rotting to nothing.

 

He was alone. At least, he was fairly sure he was alone. He didn’t stop to dwell on whether he really was or not.

 

The only noises left now were a faint echo of a scream that blended with his own- the god’s dying screams and his own, in some strange harmony with each other; even his own heartbeat wasn’t loud enough now to overcome it. Then there was a _crack._ His screams stopped dead, overtaken by silent fear and panic. He could only register the sound before the pain struck- a tearing, sudden, stabbing pain in his spine. Then another. Then another. The bones popped and cracked their way free- he could feel something sharp stab out of his skin. His throat was already raw with the ichor and the screams- burning, cracking, crying, stabbing pain found it hard to free sound from him, though it tried. Oh, it _tried._ But all he could manage now were pained gasps and weak cries, as his spine twisted and grew longer, jutting out against his skin before trying to settle and snap itself into place. His skin was being stretched taut- how much more stress could it bear before exposing the muscle underneath?...

 

More cracks interrupted his thoughts- this time from elsewhere in his body. His limbs- his ribs- the cloth wrapped around his chest was already tearing, as was his skin, exposing strings of muscle and tissue underneath. His veins were burning now- all of his organs were on fire, smouldering and burning as the ichor soaked through every part of him- he couldn’t help but notice how his own blood almost seemed to glow red-hot in the darkness, how it thickened and seeped from him more like tree sap than blood, how it was flecked with fragments of light that dimmed and blackened like embers. This was not ichor, or human blood. It was his blood. _His blood._

 

What was he becoming?

 

Something fell from him and clattered onto some unseen surface, and blood dripped from his lips to join it. Through his pain-blurred vision, he saw his own teeth tumble onto the “ground”, covered in the same vile blood seeping from every part of him. Strangely, he didn’t feel any pain as they left his mouth- some one at a time, others in groups of two or three- but he did when his _new_ teeth suddenly grew in. It was a dozen stabbing pains at once as they were forced through his gums, some cutting his tongue and silencing him as he brought his hands to his mouth to cover it, spluttering and choking on his own blood and staining his fingers even more as they began to join in on the strange, painful metamorphosis- sharp shards of bone poked their way through the fingertips and fingernails, replacing them with long claws already ruined with blood.

 

There was a sudden, jarring stillness- a brief pause as he lay there, quivering in the dark, breathing heavily, the sharp pains somehow numbing into constant aches as the transformation continued- minor things, now. There was a sense of hollowness surrounding him now- a sense of emptiness and pangs of regret, mixed with a strange feeling of anticipation. This wasn’t the end of it- the metamorphosis wasn’t yet complete. But what was missing?- There was something he just couldn’t place, but in some corner of his mind he heard that scream again; the death cry of the god he had murdered, the memory of its incomprehensible form bleeding and writhing in pain and shock.                  

 

It wasn’t just his imagination. The scream was coming back- cutting through the silence of the dark. It was louder, this time. It echoed- doubled over on itself, multiplied in the absence of other sound, forcing him to pitifully shield his ears from the cry and try to ignore the tears welling in his eyes. But some of these echoes sounded different- some more sorrowful, some filled with anger and horror, some filled with some terrible emotion he couldn’t place.

 

Something moved in the dark. He wasn’t alone here, after all.

 

The movement was slight at first- initially, he wasn’t sure if he really saw it or if his mind was delirious with the pain and terror of it all. But it continued, and his hopeful doubts were stifled. Glowing eyes opened in the dark, staring down at him- they burned into every part of him, glimmering with malice, grief, fear, anger- a cacophony of dreadful emotions. Even when he closed his own eyes, he saw them- felt them- and saw the terrible forms they belonged to. Incomprehensible figures- the same kind of impossible creatures as the god he killed, screaming in a language that went beyond mortal comprehension but one that he now somehow understood.

 

They knew that he murdered their brethren. And if he wanted to become a god himself, so be it- but this was the price he would pay. He had shed a god’s blood and took its life, so now he would give his own.

 

Struck with terror, he became desperate to banish the angered gods that now surrounded him- powerless as he was, he could still move his hands. The screams died down, and a strange sort of whispering took its place as the figures started to contort and twist the dark into something else- visions of terrible things that lay beyond his own understanding. Monsters- metaphorical and literal- revealed themselves to him, as the whispered revealed all of the terrible, fearful secrets of the world- things that were never meant to be uncovered by mortals, knowledge that drove even the most foolhardy of scholars and the most bloodthirsty of murderers mad with terror. His screams failed to drown it out- closing his eyes did nothing- he lifted his clawed hands to his face-

 

There was a sharp series of pains as he dug his fingers into his sockets and gouged his eyes out. Blood mingled with tears- there was a dazzling flash as the optical nerves were severed, but it was soon replaced with a deep, empty blackness. The visions were gone, and the whispers died down as he collapsed onto the ground, aching and exhausted- his limbs felt as heavy as roots under soil, and his weariness dulled his pains as it slowly tore him apart, atom by atom, piece by piece until nothing remained.

 

He heard a low, fading murmur- the language of the gods, he supposed, but in his hazy state he couldn’t decipher anything it said. All that he could do was lie there blindly, numbly, and sob until the darkness- as clouds hiding moonlight- moved to carry him into a swirling, empty abyss of dreamless sleep.

 

The murderer ceased to exist- memory and all- and Fear took his place.

**Author's Note:**

> 1- the "girsequ" was an actual thing! people of "third gender" i.e. "the woman who cannot give birth" and "the one who has no male organ or female organ" were often assigned to that bc of Enki. my hc adaru is trans (well trans-masc nonbinary, to be specific) so yea
> 
> 2- yep, the "spirit of fate" is Lady Luck herself
> 
> 3- i ws gonna make the slumbering god's name azathoth but tht'd be too obvious
> 
> 4- this is the longest fic i've ever written... i mean i usually do one-shots but this is. definitely the longest one. also my first go at AO3 so yea


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